Everyone is talking about the importance of marketing but nobody knows what it really means

CrossFit founder and CEO Greg Glassman said he could tell what makes successful business, more specifically a CrossFit affiliate thrive, “It’s the blind, relentless, constant pursuit of excellence.” He explained that the driving force of each affiliate should be trying to make it better.

Since first hearing that lecture in 2011 I have made it a mission to make excellence my marketing campaign. I did that by creating trust in our brand by simply showing off what we do everyday. People caught interest to that and our business has continued to grow because of it.

What I’ve noticed with traditional marketing is that trust is severely lacking in many of the campaigns that I come across my email or social media accounts. Traditional marketing assumes that sending a newsletter to my inbox in a form of spam is building some type of trust. Most of the time I’ve never heard of these business’. It reminds me of an email I received a year ago of a gentlemen who was selling a list of over 5,000 affiliate emails for $15. I think he felt that sending me spam email about the opportunity to send others spam emails would make him money. Its would be similar to going to compete in the CrossFit Games without ever training for it and expecting to get on the podium. In marketing as in competition there is a process that cannot be skipped. Which brings me to the core of successful marketing.

TRUST

Trust is a process that must always come first and is always being tested. Once you understand this basic concept everything from that point on is the display of that trust through “excellence”. Build trust by doing what you do naturally. That should be your marketing campaign.The sales will come as a by product. Traditional marketing presents it the other way around.

Here’s the beauty of trust when you make it the core of your marketing strategy. Once trust is built your clients become your marketers and it cost you nothing. They will transfer their trust onto others. This is the true meaning of word of mouth.

This is where social media comes into play. Its an avenue for marketing your trusted brand onto others.

We know that we are changing people’s lives day in-and-day-out and with social media all we should be trying to do is display that as consistently as possible. Successful social media business accounts should be doing nothing more than showing off what they do as naturally as possible. With a share on Facebook, a repost on Instagram, an upload on YouTube, or a retweet on Twitter it has never been easier to show that off. Social media allows us to do that because as Greg Glassman says “they will define themselves by their association with you.”. Our friends on social media will end up liking our post, watching our videos, or re-tweeting our tag lines. This builds trust and trust sells. This is how marketing should be done.

The key word here is consistently. I think we all understand that Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter are here to stay for sometime. There are some great companies taking advantage of these platforms and they are crushing it.

An example of that would be Kelly Starrett and his Mobility Project. He made it a goal to record 365+ videos that would help CrossFitters and other athletes around the world become more “supple”. All for free! He did it by building trust in his audience by consistently posting daily videos of mobility drills he was already performing with his clients. After the project came to an end he launched MobilityWod.com as a premium membership site. Nobody even flinched in moving towards the premium site because he built trust over time never missing a day and posting videos that others could use. I can guarantee that his marketing strategy worked and and it’s paying off in sales.

But I think there are still a lot of business struggling to understand how to interact on these social media platforms. They create accounts and post something whenever they can. Don’t get me wrong the posts that they have are great, their heart is in the right place, but it is not giving a return on their time. They find themselves posting less and less often until a year goes by without a single post. Can you see why this isn’t working?

Instead what I think gyms should be doing is posting what they do naturally every single day, multiple times a day. This is the greatest way to produce trust. This is a spam free form of marketing. All we’re trying to do is display what we’re already doing to a bigger audience. This builds trust. I am not selling, I am not asking. I am doing nothing more than showing off what we are already doing.

Our gym exudes excellence but I need a way to show that off in order for other people to see what we are doing.

The old adage build it in they will come is a lie. You need to draw interest in a manner that is trustworthy and the best way we have found to do that is through social media. It works but you need to consistently do it, over, and over, and over again. I cannot underestimate this concept of repetition.

Here’s our secret: Get two other employees or coaches and place them as administrators on your social media accounts. This allows you to replicate yourself three-fold. Make it part of their daily task to make one post a day. It can be on anything. A photo from class to Instagram, add a demo video to Youtube, or even a motivational quote to tweet about on Twitter. This done consistently over time will do amazing things for building trust and excitement to your brand.

This level of consistency builds major brand loyalty and helps build sales. Don’t take my word for it. Give it a try!